Thursday, August 17, 2006

Dreier-Offerman Park

Click for larger image(Photo credit - Google Earth)

I was on the telephone helping a client with a computer problem when I received a call from Mary Eyster. She was at Dreier-Offerman Park, near Coney Island, surveying the park with a park’s department administrator. There are currently some very contentious issues involving this NYC property, but that’s a story for another time. In the process of walking around she stumbled upon a Lark Sparrow. The last time I saw a Lark Sparrow was on September 27, 1999. That individual was the first seen in Prospect Park since 1960.

New York City’s birder’s network is amazingly fast. Within 10 minutes of Mary’s call, Sean and I were on the road to the park. When we arrived we found the bird fairly quickly. I called Lloyd who posted the information on the Metro Birding Briefs website. Shane called me from the road (he was returning from Long Island) so I stuck around with Mary until he arrived. Again, we found the bird very quickly as there’s no species normally found around New York City that looks even vaguely like this western/mid-western bird. We took a couple of digiscoped photos then used our cellphones to alert other birders. Now if we can only find a way to use technology to save the species as quickly as we announce them.